December 16, 2004 Turbo Sliders, the latest release from my indie games publisher
Jollygood Games, has become an instant hit! It's selling way beyond our expectations and the huge volume of demo version downloads
has already forced us to upgrade our website hosting plan twice. Turbo Sliders is a racing game with a classic top-down perspective and
network gaming for up to 20 players. It's available for Windows and Linux, which brings me to the other positive surprise -
It has been said that Linux users don't want to pay for their software... well based on the initial experiences with Turbo Sliders (which
has only been available for less than three weeks) this just isn't true - we have received a good number of orders for the Linux version!
December 6, 2004
Now that EA has officially released GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, Lord Of The Rings and Medal Of Honor: Pacific Assault I can finally
reveal what has kept me so busy this year. In addition to working with my own companies
Jollygood Games and UMOCO, I've helped out at EA's Los Angles studio as a 3D programming
specialist, giving advice on techniques, implementing some cool funcionality and optimizing code. It's been an amazing experience to work on some
of the year's biggest game titles both on PlayStation 2 and PC. My best regards to all the cool people I got to meet at the Los Angeles
studio!
Today I'd like to talk about GBXN - Game Banner eXchange Network. It's a free community service aimed at
helping independent game developers get more exposure for their games and game related websites. It was founded by a friend of mine so I gave
it a try at the Jollygood Games website and so far I'm happy with the results. :)
Joining is easy (and free!), just fill in some information and submit - you get a verification email in a few seconds and that's it. Once logged in you can
add banners to your account and choose what types of game ads you want to display on your site. The final step is placing a piece of html code
on your site (which is basically just copy-pasting a block from the GBXN site). That's an important part - you earn impressions by showing
the ads on your own site. Two impressions per each three showings on your site, plus 10 free impressions for each click on your site! So,
in theory you lose a visitor each time someone clicks on the ad (but not really, as the links open in a new window) but that is pretty well compensated
by having 10 other people see your ad. :)
November 6, 2004
A warm welcome to Uztek Games to the ranks of Jollygood Games game developers.
Uztek Games offerings are retro style games where the focus is in perfect game play and clever level design. Uztek's latest
Pocket PC games - excellent Nodes Of Yesod and
Robin Of The Wood have just been released on the Jollygood Games portal - if you
have a Pocket PC and like playing cool games, go and take a look! There's a free demo available of both of the games.
October 22, 2004
A warm welcome to Xenonaut game developers community to the growing list of web sites I host.
Xenonaut is a lively community for game developers, both a place to promote your products and a place to find help when in need. I am honored
to run the community, and special regards go to Bernhard and Houdini who ran the site for the first four years of its run! If you're a
game developer, either a newbie of an experienced veteran, I invite you to join the community
today!
October 20, 2004
Jollygood Games has released a new game called GAL-apagos! It's an addictive
Arkanoid-style game with fun and colorful graphics and polished gameplay! The setting of the game is in the sunny Galapagos where you rescue beautiful
girls that have been captured by the Idols of the Temple. As always, a free demo is available for download and the full game can be purchased from the
Jollygood Games website.
October 19, 2004
UMOCO has released its first game: UMOCO Athletics for Nokia Series 40 phones! The game features amazing 8 events packed in a 64k jar: Long Jump, High Jump,
100m Sprint, 110m Hurdles, Triple Jump, Discus, Skeet Shoot and Shot Put. High Score feature, Season Best,
World Records and Save/Resume features. Unique 2 button interface makes this a game that is easy to play, but pretty damn hard to master!
UMOCO Athletics has received Java Verified certification as is available for purchase immediatelly.
August 1, 2004 UMOCO announced! Here's a quote from the official website www.umoco.com. "UMOCO was founded in the spring of 2004 by industry veterans Jani Penttinen and Steve Wetherill to develop original game content for mobile platforms.
We are organized as a virtual studio under the guidance of Jani & Steve, with participation from programming, graphics, design and audio specialists on
three continents. ".
UMOCO is currently working with mobile industry's hottest publishers on some very cool content, more info to be posted in the near future! In the meanwhile
if you're looking for work (programmers, artists), send me an email with a resume and links to work samples. We're especially interested in programmers
with experience on J2ME or BREW, and artists with experience on low resolution 2D graphics and 3D models with extremely low polygon counts...
May 7, 2004 e3 aka Electronic Entertainment Expo is next week. It's the main event of the year
in the computer games industry and as always it will be an interesting show. New hand held game consoles will be introduced by Sony
and Nintendo, a range of new cool games will be on display and the mobile 3D industry will likely see announcements of some new cool
hardware accelerators. I'm looking forward to seeing what new games Nokia will be showcasing for the new N-Gage QD, as well
as any presentations from competing mobile platforms Zodiac and Gizmondo.
April 22, 2004
Happy Earth Day! Go ahead and spend a moment playing your favorite game (such as
Crystal Power!) and relax. Then go and do something good for the earth that we all live on!
In addition to the new games we also launched a line of merchandise! That's right,
Jollygood Games Mechandise Store is now open! You can get a t-shirt or a coffee mug branded with our popular
game characters! Currently we're offering Betty's Beer Bar and Jollygood Games
merchandise, soon to be followed by Crystal Power. Go on, check out the store and order your
Jollygood gear right now! :)
Last, and by all means not least, we have started offering
Jollygood Mobile Logos, colorful images you get get directly to your cellphone! Check it out! :)
As you can tell I've been quite busy lately and it doesn't seem to be getting any easier... Lots of cool things are yet
to be announced. While waiting for more news, check out the existing stuff at Jollygood website. If
you fancy some interesting and entertaining reading go ahead and pick up
How To Get Rich by Donald J. Trump! I'm about half way through it, and I have to admit it's really interesting reading. It doesn't really tell you
how to get rich (really!) but there's some good advice and most importantly the book is good entertainment.
April 10, 2004
Welcome! I can't believe it is already Easter. I've been working on an exciting new game and I have to say time
certainly flies when you're having a good time. In any case, Happy Easter everyone!
Traffic and sales at Jollygood Games have been increasing
streadily and we seem to be off to a good year. Unfortunately I was forced to delay the release of one new game by
several months to better focus the resources. This is all for the best, as the common goal we all share is to deliver
quality games, and this is exacly what we're going to do. Expect to see some groundbreaking announcements at around
mid-May at game industry's e3 expo in Los Angeles...
February 29, 2004
Happy Leap Day everyone! I'm happy to announce the immediate availability of Beesly's Buzzwords at
Jollygood Games. This is a fun
and addictive game for anyone who likes to play with words. It's also been nominated as
one of the finalists in the Independent Games
Festival 2004 indie game competition. Having been a member of the jury for IGF in 2002 and 2003
I know how tough the competition is so please join me in congratulating
Flashbang Studios for this achievement!
